This invention relates generally to paint rollers, and more particularly to paint rollers arranged to support the paint roller frame assembly for rotation on a supporting base of the paint roller arranged for mounting connection onto the end of an extension pole member.
Paint rollers have long been used for painting large, flat, expansive areas such as walls, floors and ceilings and when held in the hand of an operator, provide the user with great versatility in such painting operations. Specifically, rollers may be moved over the surface being painted in straight, vertical and horizontal directions of travel as well as arcuate directions of travel movement, without need of lifting the roller from the surface being painted, by normal and natural articulation of the wrist and arm, as is well known.
However, as is also well known, paint rollers are frequently used on the ends of extension pole members in order to provide greater reach of the painting operation without need of the operator standing on ladders or step stools, etc. However, as is well understood in the art, when paint rollers are mounted on the end of longitudinally elongated extension pole members, the aforementioned versatility of the painting operation offered by the articulation of the wrist and arm of the operator is entirely lost, and painting operations are typically then restricted to vertically extending directions of movement between which the roller is typically lifted off of the surface being painted for lateral movement of the assembly and placement back onto the surface for another vertical painting operation. Since the paint roller apparatus is mounted at the end of a long extension pole member, any arcuate travel of the roller requires wide angling of the long extension pole member or movement of the operator about the floor surface to accomplish angling of the roller for travel during painting. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the painting industries, when a roller is moved upwardly along a wall to a point near the juncture of the wall with the ceiling, upward travel is stopped and the roller lifted and moved to the left or right in order to paint another vertical stretch. This stopping and lifting the roller and replacing it on the surface being painted typically leaves a pooling of paint on the surface and requires follow-up detail painting with a brush to smooth out the pooling and to finish painting the wall surface to its juncture with the ceiling, as is understood.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,903,952 discloses an indexable paint roller frame arrangement that is supported rotatably on a roller handle member for indexing of the roller cage and cover of the roller to several different positions to permit the paint roller to reach difficult faces and angles of a painting surface identified as such things as railings, cabinets, pipes, trim and the like. In this regard, the indexable paint roller arrangement provides for indexed rotating movement of the roller cover on a plane that is spaced perpendicularly from and extends parallel to the longitudinal axis of the handle of the paint roller. This arrangement is generally similar, in terms identifiable to the layman, to the overall appearance and relationship of a helicopter main rotor rotating above the body of the helicopter.
Given the earlier discussed limitations imposed on paint rollers when mounted on the end of longitudinally elongated extension pole members, it is evident that a benefit would be derived by the provision of a paint roller apparatus which is arranged to generally simulate the general painting orientations achieved by the articulations of the wrist and arm when the paint roller is supported on the extension pole during painting operations.